CCDA/CCDP - CCNA or CCDA?

Author

CCNA or CCDA?

kwoksir

2001-07-04, 8:36 am

How do you rate the difficulty amongst these two tests? Is CCNA harder than CCDA or vice versa? Or they belong to total different style of examination. At present I have no idea about CCDA since I haven't take any look for CCDA book.

I just pass CCNA a week ago with just around 900. Frankly speaking not very familar with cisco products/exam. In these few weeks, I plan to either to go for Solaris exam or CCDA. I haven't decided yet.

I think I will take CCDA first if most of you think I will be benefit if I take CCDA first (since some of the content may relate to those in CCNA, right? I don't know)

Or should I allocate more time for cisco basic (I plan to go to CCNP track later)?

Thanks you for your reading!
Hungry for your sharing.

depamo

2001-07-29, 11:22 am

The CCNA is directed twords an entry level understanding of routed networks and switching. The CCDA is using knowledge of routed networks to design them.

The differences are from the standpoint of operating versus designing. I came from a job where I was operating them all the time so I took the CCNA to match that knowledge. Then I took the CCDA because I am designing them now in my new job.

Personally if you are going to get both, the CCDA is the harder of the two, much more to memorize since you need to know the bulk of the Cisco products. The CCNA is more operational information and network terminology. After taking both, I believe that the CCNA is more of a building block for the CCDA. The CCDA won't ask as many questions about LAN terminology but you will have to know it to answer the questions where the CCNA is explicitly questioning your ability to work with LAN's and that level of equipment. CCDA will also question your knowledge on larger systems such as the Enterprise 5K switches (L3 switches).

Anyway with my background, that is the path that I choose to take. Talk to you all later!!

meyerc13

2001-08-05, 9:10 pm

Personally, I took the CCDA first, since I had more experience with network design than I did with the router IOS.

I tend to agree that the CCDA is more difficult, since it assumes a broad base of knowledge of networking. I found that my years of experience in networking helped me to better understand the scenarios presented on the CCDA exam. This exam is brutal in that you can be hit with anything from Token Ring to SNA to FDDI. Granted, you don't need to know the dirty details on these technologies, but you do need to know what they are in a general sense.

Also, I don't think you need to memorize all the products, but you should probably be familiar with the general capabilities of the various product lines. There aren't that many, on the router side you have 800/1600/1700/2500/2600/3600/etc. On the switch side you have 1900/2900/3500/3900/5000/6000/etc. Usually functionality increases with product number, but not always. Maybe it was easier for me since my network used 800, 1600, 1700, 2500, 2600, and 3600 routers, so I was already familiar with those products. On the switch side I had experience only with the 2900 series, although I had done research on some of the bigger Layer 3 stuff (6500 series mostly).

Overall, I found it far more irritating memorizing the various steps in Cisco's design process. Compared to that, knowing the router and switching products was a welcome relief.

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